April 16, 2005: Headlines: COS - Azerbaijan: Refugees: Baku Today: The aid refugees receive in Azerbaijan is sometimes in excess of their needs and is sold on to local residents, according to Peace Corps volunteer Lisa Min who works with refugee and local children in Kurdamir.

The aid refugees receive in Azerbaijan is sometimes in excess of their needs and is sold on to local residents, according to Peace Corps volunteer Lisa Min who works with refugee and local children in Kurdamir.

KURDAMIR, Azerbaijan, April 16 (AFP) - Already too dark indoors, a few old men sat outside a ramshackle teahouse to catch the last rays of the afternoon sun as they played dominoes in this dusty town in central Azerbaijan.

"There hasn't been any electricity in the whole neighborhood for seven hours," complained one, "nowhere except there," he added, gesturing at a rickety apartment block inhabited by refugees from the Nagorny-Karabakh war.

Hundreds of thousands of Azeri refugees from a conflict that erupted in last days of the Soviet Union still live in destitute housing and camps scattered around the republic.

But the regular aid that they receive both from the government and foreign aid agencies has stoked resentment in the poor communities to which they have been resettled.

"They get a lot of help and we get nothing," said 75-year old Gara, who said his 24 US dollars a month pension was only enough to cover energy and water costs, but left little for food.

A regular supply of free electricity is just one of the benefits that ordinary residents in Kurdamir wish they could share.

In an area where jobs are scarce and pensions low, they say the food aid refugees receive, as well as tax benefits and a clean water supply mean life is easier for those who fled their homes more than a decade ago.

Azerbaijan will spend 60 million US dollars on aid to refugees this year and foreign aid groups are expected to pitch in an additional 30 million US dollars according to the government.

And though billions of US dollars have been invested into the Caspian nation as a BP-led consortium prepares to launch a massive pipeline to deliver oil from here to Western markets, nearly half of the country lives below the poverty line.

Azerbaijan and its rival Armenia fought a bloody war for Karabakh, a predominantly Armenian enclave within Azerbaijan's internationally recognized borders until a ceasefire was signed in 1994.

Pro-Armenian forces won control of Karabakh and seven surrounding regions at the cost of about 25,000 dead from both sides. About a million people on both sides, 750,000 of them Azeris, were driven from their homes.

And though conditions in the camps remain poor, aid groups have begun to indicate that in poverty-stricken Azerbaijan, there is more suffering outside the camps than inside.

More than 90 percent of refugees consume acceptable amounts of food, but according to a recent study by the World Food Program (WFP) up to 600,000 ordinary people in rural areas are "food insecure" causing malnutrition mainly among children.

"It is an issue which needs to be addressed. Twenty four percent of children in some areas are stunted and suffer from malnutrition," said Rahman Chowdhury, WFP director in Azerbaijan.

Meanwhile the aid refugees receive, which is sometimes in excess of their needs, is sold on to local residents, according to a Peace Corps volunteer who works with refugee and local children in Kurdamir.

As she sat by candlelight because of a power cut, Lisa Min said there was "less resentment than you would expect," between the two communities, but goods like vegetable oil given to refugees in large quantities often find their way onto the market.

Instead of taking steps to integrate refugees into communities and invest money into developing towns, Azerbaijan's government has done everything to make sure refugees stay in camps, against the advice of aid agencies.

"We want them to live in concentration so that when the occupied territories are liberated it will be easier to move them back in," Azerbaijan's Deputy Prime Minister Ali Hasanov told AFP.

The high level of government support that they receive is designed to create incentives for the refugees to stay put, Hasanov said, but it has also given grounds for jealousy from their impoverished neighbors.

With Armenia and Azerbaijan no closer to reaching a lasting settlement than they were when the tense ceasefire was reached, humanitarian organizations have pushed the government to look at other options.

According to the WFP's Chowdhury, "living in the camps is not ideal, not for a long time, they do not have opportunities to work outside and this causes grievances and tensions," with the local communities.

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Story Source: Baku Today

This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Azerbaijan; Refugees

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